Labor, Greens say fixes will founder without school cash

By
Anna Patty

Plans to improve the quality of teachers in NSW will not be realised without extra funding, say the opposition and the Greens.

Plans to improve the quality of teachers in NSW will not be realised without extra funding, say the opposition and the Greens.

Opposition education spokeswoman Carmel Tebbutt, said the NSW government's plan to attract the brightest students to teaching was ''commonsense and should be supported''.

''But … the government has introduced no new funding to implement these measures and they cannot be implemented without additional funding,'' she said. ''We've got a government that's cutting $1.7 billion from the education budget and that is going to impact on the ability to attract the best and brightest and to support those teachers.''

Ms Tebbutt said the proposal to reduce the workload for new teachers meant schools needed extra funding for relief teachers.

Ms Tebbutt said the government had given teachers their lowest pay rise in a decade with its 2.5 per cent cap on salary increases for government employees.

Greens MP John Kaye said without extra resources for schools, the NSW plan was likely to amount to ''nothing but aspirations''.

''Mentoring entry-level teachers, ongoing professional assessment against standards, managing underperformance and developing pathways for school leaders are all highly desirable but very expensive,'' he said. ''The decimated Department of Education is in no position to provide the support that schools will need to implement most of the blueprint.''

Federal Minister for Education Peter Garrett said NSW was supporting his government's own plan, including tactics such as mentoring for new teachers.

''The NSW plan recognises that national reforms, such as the national teaching standards and accreditation of teaching courses, will help lift standards,'' he said.

Mr Garrett said university entry scores were not the best way to measure teaching potential. ''The critical point here is the quality of the teachers coming out of university, not just how capable they are going into university,'' he said.